Ratchet and Clank first came to Kerwan in search of Captain Qwark, after seeing a commercial for Al's Roboshack. While unable to locate Qwark, they were able to obtain extremely useful gadgets, including the Heli-Pack and Swingshot, which would be invaluable in all their subsequent adventures. The two later returned to Kerwan during Dr. Nefarious' attack with the Biobliterator, as he successfully turned the entire population of the planet into robots. Later, Ratchet and Clank had lived in Metropolis prior to Emperor Tachyon's attack with his drophyd army, and fought off the drophyds while fleeing the planet.

In Up Your Arsenal, the city features a hidden teleporter to the Insomniac Museum. Once the player defeats enemies near the ship at the center area, by going left and breaking the glass, and jumping across to the next section, a teleporter can be found. If the player's game clock is set between 3:00am and 4:00am, they can be transported to the museum.

Contents

History

Pre-Ratchet & Clank

Kerwan was the home of Captain Qwark, where he grew up, and attended the Kerwan Learning Annex to draw schematics. It was also the home of heroes Quaternion X and Captain Starshield, the latter of whom had earned the title Citizen of the Millennium.

According to the Qwark vid-comicDeja Q All Over Again, Metropolis originally came under attack by Insectoids, led by Dr. Nefarious. Qwark interrupted his fitness training session in order to fight off the Insectoids, and then defeat the robotic Nefarious. After defeating Nefarious, Qwark threw his detached robotic head into a trash can, before Lawrence knocked Qwark unconscious, retrieved Nefarious' head, and took them both to Nefarious' hideout.[1]

At some point, Qwark appeared in a commercial endorsing Big Al's Roboshack. The grav-train in the city also provided scenic tours, prior to the blarg's invasion.[2]

Ratchet & Clank

The Metropolis cityscape

Ratchet and Clank acquired the coordinates for Kerwan on planet Novalis, after the chairman gave the two an infobot featuring the commercial for Big Al's Roboshack.

The two also completed Qwark's fitness challenge, ran by Qwark's trainer Helga von Streissenburgen, who offered a prize to those who completed it.[4] Upon completing the challenge, she scolded the two for "disgracing" her obstacle course. While Qwark had asked her to reward the two with a Swingshot,[5] Helga demanded that the two pay 1,000 bolts to buy it from her instead. The two obliged, and purchased a Swingshot.

Re-imagined

The re-imagined game describe Captain Qwark's account of events, while the re-imagined film is an in-universe holofilm. As Qwark is an unreliable narrator, and the holofilm is fiction, any events that contradict the original are non-canon (though those which correspond still apply). Please see Project:Bulletin board/Canon for the wiki's coverage of canon.

Ratchet and Clank were left stranded in the city after a blarg destroyed their ship, and had to find a route to the Hall of Heroes. This led to them fighting through blarg forces to reach Al's Roboshack, where Al upgraded Clank with a Heli-Pack for free as a gesture to the Rangers. Al then advised them that they could find a train to the Hall of Heroes, as a grav-train near his roboshack would take them straight back. They then used the Heli-Pack to travel to the grav-train station and rode a grav-train, transporting ships, statues, and dangerous animals and disconnect a bomb installed on it by the blarg. After disconnecting the bomb from the train, they then took the train to the Hall of Heroes.[6]

After the ordeal, Qwark was transferred to the Aleero City Penitentiary, where he told his story to fellow inmate Shiv Helix.[6]

Up Your Arsenal

Metropolis in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal

After completing the vid-comic Deja Q All Over Again, Ratchet realized that Metropolis would be Nefarious' next target for invasion, as Nefarious had already attempted to invade Metropolis before Qwark stopped him. Ratchet then traveled to the planet with Klunk, whom he still believed to be Clank.

Ratchet fought through waves of Tyhrranoids before Nefarious then used the Biobliterator. While Ratchet was able to avoid the blast, the blast transformed all organic life forms on the planet, including Tyhrranoids, into robots. Ratchet then chased after Nefarious, before finding the real Clank hostage. At this point, Klunk revealed his true identity, and fought Ratchet in Giant Klunk form, while Nefarious left the planet having accomplished his goal. Ratchet defeated Giant Klunk aboard a grav-train and freed Clank.

Following the events of Up Your Arsenal, Sasha Phyronix became appointed interim Mayor of Metropolis, leaving the Starship Phoenix to Ratchet, Clank and Al. According to Vox News, Sasha had been appointed after the previous mayor stepped down amid a sordid scandal involving illicit funds from an amoeboid mafia.[7]

Tools of Destruction

Ratchet and Clank in Kerwan during Tachyon's attack

Ratchet and Clank had been living in Metropolis when the city came under attack from Emperor Tachyon'sImperial Army. They were first notified by Qwark, who sent them a transmission from within the Planetary Defense Center, requesting they come to his aid. The city suffered major damage from Tachyon's army, while Ratchet and Clank fought through waves of drophyds to reach the Planetary Defense Center.

Upon arrival, the two found the Planetary Defense Center vacant, and were forced to flee on grav-train rails using the Grind Boots. Eventually, they caught up with Tachyon, who introduced himself, and promised to kill no one else on Metropolis if Ratchet surrender and allow Tachyon to kill him. Ratchet disabled Tachyon by breaking one of his walking throne's legs, and fled using Tachyon's ship to the Polaris Galaxy.

According to the IRIS Supercomputer, a portion of the Imperial Army stayed behind on Kerwan in search of the Dimensionator before leaving, while the city underwent reconstruction and the inhabitants were stuck watching repeat screenings of Big Al's Bot Wars.

During the events of A Crack in Time, Al relaunched Big Al's Roboshack and Gaming Superstore, with an announcement on space radio.

Geography

Overview

Metropolis landscape

Metropolis is a large cityscape with tall skyscrapers covered in vegetation, and dense skyway traffic. The skyscrapers are so high up that those who look below from the top will see only a dense blue-ish fog that obscures the view. The buildings also feature bronze caps with spires on top and green windows as decorations, as well as grassy areas, plants and moss, and are connected by sky bridges. Several areas on top of buildings and floating islands have grass, trees, vegetation, and also street lamps.

Several brightly colored billboards with logos and imagery are found throughout the city (particularly prominent in the re-imagined release).

Transportation

Various means of transportation are used around Metropolis. Most prominently, flying cars in pre-designated lanes make up the dense skyway traffic seen in the air at all times, while a transit system of red grav-trains connect many parts of the city. Grav-trains, red hovering freight trains flying throughout Metropolis, also provided scenic tours of the city, prior to the blarg invasion.[2] Some trains can also be seen on rail tracks. Blimps with logos can also be seen in the sky, used for advertisement.

Grav-trains feature prominently in Ratchet & Clank, the 2016 re-imagined game, and Up Your Arsenal. These carriages have flat platforms in the carts on which Ratchet can stand, and carry luggage. In the original and re-imagined release, Ratchet fought blarg forces while running across the train, with the re-imagined release also transporting killer fish, construction materials, and a large bomb that the blarg attempted to use to destroy the Hall of Heroes. In Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet fought Giant Klunk on the grav-train.

Trains on rails appear in Tools of Destruction, with Ratchet grinding across the rails while many came at him full speed during Tachyon's invasion.

Blimps were seen in the original Ratchet & Clank and Up Your Arsenal, with a large Qwark logo. These blimps appear to be mainly used for transport. Destroying these blimps earns the skill pointsBlimpy and 2002 was a good year in the city in the respective games.

Points of interest

Big Al's Roboshack and Gaming Superstore

Big Al's Roboshack

Big Al's Roboshack is visited in Ratchet & Clank, the 2016 re-imagined game, and mentioned in A Crack in Time and All 4 One. It is a large store run by Al, which provides repairs and upgrades for technology. It is a grey store on top of a skyscraper, identified by a large, rotating, gold robot statue carrying a wrench on top of store's entrance on the skybridge. Inside, the store is home to several robotic parts, along with Al's workbench. Behind the back exit of the store is a storage area with many stacked crates that lead towards other skybridges eventually towards a grav-train station.

Big Al's Roboshack supplied several repairs for Captain Qwark's equipment during his adventuring,[8] and also supplied the Heli-Pack upgrade for Clank. Qwark filmed an ad for Al's Roboshack before Ratchet and Clank arrived. The Roboshack was relaunched years later as Big Al's Roboshack and Gaming Superstore, expanded to sell videogames, and advertised over Space Radio commercials.[9][10]

In the re-imagined release, upon visiting the store, it also sold My Blaster Runs Hot, Fongoid with a Stick, Speero the Space Mouse, and Intransigence: Fall of Blarg, for which the Mega-Limited Ultra Edition release was available. Posters for each of these could be seen in the store, along with items including Captain Qwark books and a Qwark clock. The outside of the Roboshack is different, as it is a red structure lacking the golden rotating robot statue, instead featuring a billboard sign to the left. The building was also closed off when the blarg attack.

Captain Qwark fitness course

Qwark's fitness course

Qwark's fitness course appears in Ratchet & Clank, the 2016 re-imagined game, and in Up Your Arsenal during the vid-comic Deja Q All Over Again. It is a fitness course ran by Qwark's fitness trainer, Helga von Streissenburgen, and advertised by a Qwark bot with a spring for legs. A prize was offered to those who could successfully traverse the course.[4] The course contains expanding and retracting platforms to jump on and wall jumps to get across, with the goal being for the participant to reach the top of an island and then use a zip wire to reach the next. The first island contains a rocky hill with some built-in jump slots to be climbed, while the second holds a large, yellow and black structure.

Qwark used the fitness course himself during the vid-comics, and Ratchet and Clank beat the challenge only to be scolded by Helga. In the re-imagined release, the Captain Qwark fitness course instead located in the Hall of Heroes and is used by the Rangers, with a similar structure though the first island features a metal structure rather than a hill, and islands are not connected by zip lines. This version requires the Ranger to reach the top of the first island, the "Summit of Justice", and climb the structure on the second island, the "Tower of Power", and features Qwark bots throughout the course, at the bottom and top of the first two islands, and on the final island.

Planetary Defense Center

The Planetary Defense Center appears in Tools of Destruction. It is ran by Captain Qwark, and used to defend against external threats. The entrance is a round door, and it is not open to the public. Ratchet and Clank visited the Planetary Defense Center after Qwark requested their help in defending against Tachyon's drophyd attack, only to find he had vacated the building before they arrived.

Hall of Heroes

The Hall of Heroes as it appears in the movie

The Hall of Heroes appears in the 2016 re-imagined release of Ratchet & Clank. It is the headquarters of the Galactic Rangers, located on a large, grassy, floating island. The Hall's island has a gate leading towards a long stretch of land before a tall building, in which the Rangers reside. It is home to their VR training deck, used to train Ratchet, a small central control room ran by Elaris that exists within a broom closet, and a cafeteria for food. The island is connected to a grav-train, and in this release, is home to the Captain Qwark fitness course.

Ratchet & Clank area

Map layout of Metropolis

The area visited in Ratchet & Clank is a set of buildings connected by sky bridges, leading to Al's Roboshack and a grav-train station. Their ship lands in a small grassy area by a landing platform, with a tunnel leading down to a circular area connected to two paths. Surrounding the landing platform are several inaccessible buildings in the distance, and large amounts of air traffic. Below the landing platform is a large tunnel through which air traffic travels. Above the platform is a train station.

The path on the left leads to Qwark's fitness course, located behind a large structure. The fitness course consists of three large, round, grassy islands, with each leading to a summit containing a zip line down to the next island. The first island is attached to the structure leading to the course, and has a large, rocky hill to climb with jump slot areas for wall jumps, and leads towards the second island. This is a round island with a yellow and black structure, containing retracting and expanding platforms, as well as jump slots, to climb to reach the zip wire. This leads to the third island, a small island featuring three platforms built into its ground, connected by Versa-targets allowing the Swingshot to be used to reach the highest platform, containing a zip line back to the first island. Located just to the east of the second building is an building accessible from the surrounding openings.

The path on the right leads to a series of sky bridges connecting several buildings, eventually leading to Al's Roboshack and to a grav-train station. The first two buildings are located on the east side and are connected by a short bridge, and the second has a longer bridge leading west, to two open platforms on buildings connected by an escalator leading down to the lower platform. This contains a long bridge east that marks the entrance to Al's Roboshack.

Behind Al's Roboshack is an open concrete area with large stacked boxes, which can be climbed to reach a building with an elevator to its summit. This is located next to another building to its north, with an elevator up to a sky bridge to the grav-train station. The station is entered with an elevator, and has many large stacked wooden boxes and crates. To the left after the entrance to the station, a grav-train is boarded. This returns to the train station above to the starting area, with two open areas from it, of which the one on the right leads down to an elevator returning to the beginning, while the one on the left simply leads to a balcony surrounded by a metal fence.

Re-imagined area

The re-imagined game describe Captain Qwark's account of events, while the re-imagined film is an in-universe holofilm. As Qwark is an unreliable narrator, and the holofilm is fiction, any events that contradict the original are non-canon (though those which correspond still apply). Please see Project:Bulletin board/Canon for the wiki's coverage of canon.

The first area visited is an area surrounding the Hall of Heroes, with several surrounding buildings, and an orange forcefield around where the blarg attack.

After this, Downtown Aleero City is visited, which is very similar to the Metropolis area visited in the original Ratchet & Clank in its path, though it is notably home to more advertisement billboards. This begins with a large area with a familiar tunnel leading to a similar circular area, though there is no path on the left leading to Qwark's fitness course. The path on the right still leads to the two buildings connected by a sky bridge, with the second leading to a third building with a tunnel leading down to a lower platform with a small fountain. This platform has a bridge to Al's Roboshack.

Behind Al's Roboshack is a familiar stack of crates in front of a building with an elevator to its summit, with a building to the west that also has an elevator up leading to the grav-train station. The entrance to the grav-train station is a tunnel with stairs leading inside, and is stacked with wooden crates with the grav-train boarded to the left of the entrance.

The grav-train leads to the island on which the Hall of Heroes is located. To the right of the entrance to the Hall of Heroes is a bridge to the Captain Qwark fitness course made of three floating islands, surrounded by a large open gate. A Qwark bot greets those who enter, and the first island of the course is made of grey and orange boxes with jump slots and platforms to climb to reach the summit of the first island, known as the "Summit of Justice", containing another Qwark bot greeting those who reach it. A series of versa-targets allow participants to Swingshot down to the second island. This island features the "Tower of Power", a larger grey and orange structure with many more retracting metal platforms and jump slots, as well as another Qwark bot greeting it. The top of the Tower of Power has another Qwark bot and an edge leading to the third island, a much smaller island with only a small structure and a final Qwark bot, and a taxi leading back to the beginning.

After reaching the Hall of Heroes, the two reach the Rangers fitness course, home to the "Summit of Justice" and the "Tower of Power".

Up Your Arsenal area

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Main area

Operation: URBAN STORM area

Tools of Destruction area

Society

Metropolis is a large, bustling city, with huge amounts of dense skyway traffic can be seen, and there are many forms of transportation, including a grav-train transit system, suggesting the city is constantly active. The city also appears very commercialized, with blimps in the sky advertising logos, and brightly colored billboards are seen through (most prominent in the re-imagined releases). The entire population of the city were transformed into robots, following Dr. Nefarious' use of the Biobliterator.

Metropolis is the home and birthplace of many galactic heroes. Aside from Captain Qwark, it is also home to named heroes Quaternion X, the Brown Ranger, and Captain Starshield, though all of them were kidnapped to compete in DreadZone.[7] Qwark's logos and imagery appear throughout the city, suggesting he is popular among residents.

Metropolis has a mayor, presumably elected, as interim mayors are appointed by the President when a sitting mayor steps down.[7] The Planetary Defense Center featured in the city is used to defend against external threats.

Multiplayer

Up Your Arsenal

The center of the map, viewed from a tower on the side

Metropolis multiplayer map layout

The area of Metropolis used in Operation: URBAN STORM also features in a multiplayer map. It is among the larger multiplayer maps in the game, and supports all game modes. The map is symmetrical and designed for Siege mode, containing six nodes with three per side, and the opposing nodes are identical. It consists of two sides divided by a bridge with walkways and upper areas on the sides of the map. The base area does not have any special defenses. Like all maps designed for Siege, the flags spawn at the base teleporters in Capture the Flag. The map is full of large gaps separating its areas, meaning the Hypershot and jump pads must be used to navigate across it. The two vehicle pads on the map spawn Hoverships.

The nodes on the upper platform closest to the bases are guarded by three turrets and contain vehicle pads capable of spawning Hoverships. It can be accessed from a jump pad below the node or by the versa-targets leading from the tower. Once captured, the node will spawn two weapon crates and one ammo pack around it. Next to the node is a defense turret facing towards the center of the map.

The nodes on the top of the magnetic towers near the center, accessible via gravity boots or a hovership, are guarded by two turrets. They spawn four weapon crates and two ammo packs once captured.

The nodes in the corners of the map are located on the walkways near the base. The nodes can be accessed quickly from the bases and are guarded by three turrets and two troopers. Once captured, the node will spawn two weapon crates. The node leads to a large tower containing Drones.

Full Frontal Assault

Metropolis during Full Frontal Assault

Metropolis features as a downloadable map for Full Frontal Assault. It does not appear in the main story.

Other appearances

Behind the scenes

Metropolis was one of the first big levels in Ratchet & Clank that Insomniac Games created, and almost "started a war" between the designers and the artists. The goal was to have lots of greenery built into retro science fiction buildings to create a unique contrast. Many of the bronze caps on top of buildings was removed because they clashed with the rest of the city.[11]

Metropolis was later the first level of Ratchet & Clank that Insomniac prototyped and presented to Sony to showcase the game, before the game engine had been developed, in which buildings were merely cardboard cutouts of their final appearance, and Ratchet had a Pyrocitor and a Suck Cannon. Vegetation (suggested by Mark Cerny) and flying cars were added to the city to make it feel alive. It was shown as the "Metropolis" diorama.[12][13]

While the name "Metropolis" for the city was constant throughout, in the beta, planet Kerwan was originally named "Planet Caldera".[14]

Throughout its appearances, planet Kerwan as seen from space has changed in appearance dramatically. In the original Ratchet & Clank, the appearance from space resembles Coruscant from Star Wars, implying its surface to be a worldwide city. In Up Your Arsenal, Kerwan from space is instead a lush, vegetated world covered in vast oceans, implying there is more to the planet beyond Metropolis' urban landscapes. In subsequent appearances, Kerwan similarly looked different from space, but more closely resembled the Up Your Arsenal version.

Kerwan was later used as a tech demo for Tools of Destruction, as the team began development by recreating a diorama of Metropolis in the Resistance: Fall of Man engine to visualize what a Ratchet & Clank game would look like. A camera was sent through it and audio effects were added, which was shown at the 2006 Game Developers Conference.[15]